A Study of the Influence of Short Videos on the Cultural

Transmission and Identity of Poetry

Sihan Wu

Marketing and Management, Kaplan Higher Education Academic, 228095 Singapore, Singapore

Keywords: Short Video, Poetry, Culture.

Abstract: With China's rapid economic and social development, cultural identity has become an important link between

the individual and the collective, between tradition and modernity. As a treasure of Chinese culture, poetry

contains rich historical information and deep cultural heritage. With the popularity of mobile Internet, short

video platforms have become a new position for cultural dissemination. TikTok, as a representative of the

short video field, has a huge user base and diverse types of content, providing a wide space for the

dissemination of poetry and culture. Short poetry videos are conducive to strengthening people's cultural

identity and modernizing traditional culture. Taking the short poetry videos on the TikTok platform as a

starting point, this study explores how short videos can influence the audience's sense of cultural identity

through 'short duration' and multimodal communication. The study suggests ways to optimize the content

creation and dissemination strategies of short videos to better achieve the dissemination and innovation of

traditional culture in the digital ag.

1 INTRODUCTION

Cultural theorist Strinati notes that 'the world is

increasingly made up of mediated screens of popular

cultural images - televisions, video monitors, videos,

computer games, personal stereos, advertising, theme

parks, shopping malls, 'virtual capital' or credit - all

of which are important components of the trend

towards postmodern popular culture. Virtual capital

or credit is an important component of the trend

toward postmodern popular culture (Strinati and Yan,

2014). The sociologists Featherstone and Jingming

Liu also argue: 'It is the progressive increase in the

productive capacity of the image in modern society,

the increased density of the image, its lethality, the

ubiquity and breadth of its coverage, that has pushed

us into an entirely new society. It is precisely this new

society that is profoundly affecting humanity's

cultural life (Featherstone and Liu, 2000).

Poetry is the historical experience and spiritual

quality that carries the 5,000-year-old culture of the

Chinese nation, and it is an important part of the

excellent traditional Chinese culture, the inheritance

of which is one of the important tasks in the cultural

construction of contemporary China that should not

be delayed. In recent years, user groups active on

social platforms have provided more opportunities for

the contemporary dissemination of ancient poetry,

offering a variety of dissemination methods. As a

global short-form video platform with a large user

base across all age groups, TikTok has 1.071 billion

monthly active users as of October 2024 (Quest Moile,

2024). It is one of the most popular short video

platforms in China and a typical research object

among short video platforms. In this paper, we take

the short videos of ancient poems on the TikTok

platform as our research object. The purpose of this

study is to find out the unique advantages of the

brevity of short videos in cultural communication. Do

different types of poetic content have different

degrees of influence on the audience's cultural

identity? How do the multimodal communication

modes and the different types of poetic content on

TiKTok together influence the cultural identity of the

audience?

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Short video is an important medium of the mobile

Internet, deeply embedded in people's daily lives. The

short video medium advocates user participation to

Wu, S.

A Study of the Inﬂuence of Short Videos on the Cultural Transmission and Identity of Poetry.

DOI: 10.5220/0013986100004916

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2025), pages 68-73

ISBN: 978-989-758-778-8

drive the operation of the platform and construct a

participatory culture. Henry Jenkins first proposed

'participatory culture' in his study of fan culture

(Jenkins,2009). It is also seen as a core social and

cultural skill for young people today to participate in

new media. Participation in culture is a long tradition

of human community life, and short video media

technology provides more opportunities, motivation,

and possibilities for people to participate in culture.

Short-form media technology provides ordinary users

with richer and more diversified opportunities and

channels for expression, enabling grassroots and

amateur forms of expression to gain more and more

attention, and strengthening people's cultural

participation. Chasar argues that new media

technologies (from the magic lamp of the nineteenth

century to the Instagram of today) continue to reshape

poetry. These technologies have not only the way

poetry is created but also the way it is presented and

distributed, shifting the experience of poetry from

text-based engagement to multimodal, visual

expression. Digital media technology breathes new

life into traditional poetry and enhances the cultural

experience and engagement of audiences through

multimodal communication (Chasar, 2020). The

study in the Journal of Arts Research and Education

combines poetry interpretation with innovations in

clone music education and proposes a traditional

music teaching model for students in the Z era, which

has strong pedagogical implications, reflecting the

fact that the combination of poetry and music can

stimulate the younger generation's interest in and

identification with traditional culture (Supiarza and

Sarbeni, 2021). Digitalisation has changed the way

poetry is created and distributed, making it more

interactive, fragmented, and multi-media. This shift

has challenged the traditional 'classical' definition of

poetry, particularly its literal, authorial reading.

Poetry in the digital age is not only an expression of

literature, but also part of cultural production and

social interaction, becoming the intersection of

individual expression and social media in the online

environment. But culture is identified with both the

form of communication and the quality of the content.

Through the fragmented method of communication,

short poetry videos face the challenge of insufficient

depth of content while increasing the efficiency of

cultural communication (Benthien, 2020). New

media platforms, such as short videos and live

broadcasts, can help classical poetry break through

the limitations of traditional communication media

and attract the audience's favor. The content of

communication should be combined with modern

contexts so that traditional poetry and culture can be

linked to contemporary cultural and social life (Jin,

2024). Therefore, traditional poetry communication

can be innovated through modern technology,

especially in combination with visual content and

recommendation algorithms on social media, to

increase users' interest and engagement with classical

poetry (Zhang et al., 2019). The study points out that

the length advantage of short videos fits in well with

the fragmented time needs of modern people. At the

same time, the multimodal mode of communication

enhances the expressiveness of cultural content,

making cultural communication more interesting and

attractive.

At present, cultural communication in digital

media is more concerned with the dissemination of

public events, and traditional culture, represented by

ancient poetry, is less involved in short video

communication. Ancient poetry, as a treasure of

China's excellent traditional culture, "the memory

impression of the unique Chinese traditional

temperament and aesthetic experience in the digital

space examination" helps to clarify the dissemination

mechanism of Chinese traditional culture in the

digital space (Yang, 2015).

3 RESEARCH METHOD

The protocol design of this study used the

questionnaire survey method and word frequency

analysis to ensure the scientificity and validity of the

study, which analyzed 146 data samples for

exploratory and validation factors to examine

ShakeEn users' perceptions of poetry-based short

videos. A further 1,000 comment data from 50 short

videos related to poetry on the TikTok platform were

collected to provide a basis for word frequency

analysis.

Questionnaire data were analyzed using SPSS for

exploratory and validation analyses. Commentary

data were analyzed using word frequency analysis to

extract high-frequency words and to explore audience

emotional feedback and cultural identity performance

to different types of poetic content.

4 RESEARCH RESULT

4.1 Advantages of ‘Short’ Video in

Cultural Communication

Questionnaire data shows that 79.86% of respondents

believe that the short duration of short videos can help

A Study of the Inﬂuence of Short Videos on the Cultural Transmission and Identity of Poetry

to gain information efficiently, particularly for

viewing with fragmented time. About 83.33% of the

respondents preferred videos of less than 3 minutes,

which shows that the communication method of short

videos fits the life rhythm of modern audiences. In

addition, the highly interactive nature of short videos,

such as liking, commenting, and sharing, brings

viewers closer to the content and enhances the

dissemination of cultural content.

4.2 The Impact of Different Types of

Poetry on Cultural Identity

Table 1.

Users' preferences for different types of poetry

Response Percentage of

cases

Number of

cases

Percentage

8. Your favourite

type of poetry:

(multiple choice)

Idylls (e.g. ‘Return to the Garden’）

109 25.0% 74.6%

Border Poetry (e.g. ‘To the Frontier’）

79 12.7% 54.1%

Love poems (e.g. ‘Yearning’）

49 36.4% 33.5%

Nostalgic Poetry (e.g. Reminiscing About

Red Cliff)

50 25.8% 34.2%

othe

2 1.39% 0.01%

Total 289 100.0% 196.41%

a. The value 1 was used to tabulate the subgroups.

Alt Text for Graphical Figure: A colorful word cloud of high-frequency words from comment sections of short poetic videos.

Prominent words include “Tear,” “Just,” “One,” “Like,” “Time,” and “Really.” Other visible terms are associated with

emotions, culture, and classical Chinese poetry themes, such as “Human world,” “Green clouds”, “Youth travel,” and “Li

Bai.”

Figure 1.

High frequency words in the comment section of short poetic videos.

Figure 1 and Table 1 of the survey results show that

different genres of poetry show sharp divergences at

the level of communicative influence and cultural

consensus: Idyll poetry is quite popular on short video

platforms, with 'flowers', 'water towns', 'blue

mountains' and 'golden laurel' often appearing in

idyllic poetry. The combination of idyllic scenery and

imagery has made this type of video popular with

75.69% of respondents, reflecting the charm of

natural scenery and rural life. Idyllic poems are

mostly combined with serene nature and soft

melodies to form distinctive images and strong

generations, thus achieving the most outstanding

average number of likes. The result shows significant

PRMC 2025 - International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication

strength in strengthening the cultural identity of

viewers, and the popularity of idyllic short videos is

closely related to the universality of the theme. It

brings the serenity of 'transcendence of reality' to

modern life, allowing listeners to briefly escape the

chaos of the city and experience the charm of nature

through the use of poetry, In the short video of China's

idyll, " Rain in Jiangnan" and "Peach Blossoms in

Spring" have become the focus. Aerial photography

and slow-motion technology make the images as

beautiful as ink scrolls, giving viewers the feeling of

being in the realm, and the experience greatly

enhances the dissemination of the poems and the

national identity of belonging to traditional culture.

54.86% of the respondents fell in love with the

Frontier Fortress poem, whose communicative effect

is extraordinary, ranked second in the poems, such

poems with majestic border scenery, a heroic military

career as the soul, visual and auditory fusion, easy to

form the sense of powerful. High-frequency words

such as 'desert' and 'poplar' reflect the public's

preference for their unique images. In the short video

industry, the effect of the presentation of the frontier

fortress poem relies heavily on the visual impact of its

distinctive expressiveness, and the sketch of the

desert and the Gobi, and most of these videos show a

patriotic sentiment. Patriotic sentiment and enhance

the national sense of identity with Chinese culture.

Love poetry is a genre of poetry that focuses on

sentiment and its commonly used words such as

'lovesickness' and 'beautiful woman' highlight the

emotional resonance of love poetry that touches

people's hearts, and its cultural identity effect is

similar to that of wistful poetry, with 34.03% of

respondents having a preference for this type of

poetry. In short videos, love poems often convey

delicate emotions through beautiful images and

moving melodies, and producers often use rhetorical

lyrics to subtly touch the viewer's mind. Love poems

have sparked heated discussions in the comments

section. Love poems rarely touch on family and

national feelings and historical veins, and their

cultural identity is relatively weak, so artists can

explore the intertwining of personal feelings and

historical backgrounds, analyze the historical veins of

poetry creation, and strengthen cultural cohesion.

In the short video, nostalgic poems also show the

depth of cultural identity, nostalgic poems, 'Zhang

Ruoxu' and 'Yellow Crane Tower' appear frequently,

Highlighting the great advantage of creating cultural

trust through historical figures and places of interest,

34.72% of respondents gave high approval to this

type of video. The historical poems emphasize the

sense of history and the precipitation of time, and

these characteristics are reinforced by multiple

channels of dissemination. The short film on the

theme of "Separation on the River Kiang" is often

accompanied by a panoramic view of the majestic

Yellow Crane Tower and a melodious guqin melody,

igniting the fire of national pride in the viewers,

Nostalgic poems often focus on historical allusions

and legends, and these elements are explained

through voice-overs and subtitles, giving the audience

an easy insight into the deeper philosophies of the

poems.

4.3 Effects of Multimodal Propagation

The study shows that combining the visual and

auditory senses enhances the cultural impact of short

videos. 75 percent of respondents paid the most

attention to the graphic design and 50 percent felt that

background music enhanced the poetic mood. The

additional content of the narration helps the audience

to understand the connotation of the poems more

deeply, and the multimodal communication makes

the dissemination of traditional culture more

attractive. The high frequency of the words 'dubbing'

and 'picture' in the word frequency analysis further

confirms this point.

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Advantages and Limitations of

Short Video Communication

Formats

The "short duration" feature of short videos and the

fragmented dissemination greatly reduce the

threshold of cultural communication, allowing the

audience to understand the connotation of poetry in a

short time, especially in the short video of idyllic

scenery, the interweaving of poetic landscape

paintings, which can directly show the mood of the

poems, and then attract a lot of attention. The trend of

entertainment of cultural content is obvious, and the

depth of cultural communication may be lacking

shortages, creators need to take into account the

cultural connotation and entertainment in the layout

of content, to ensure cultural identity, avoid shallow

content, and the interaction in the comment section

highlights the importance of cultural communication.

The platform builds a bridge of interaction and

communication for the audience, which not only

expands the boundaries of the dissemination of short

video content, but also empowers users to participate

A Study of the Inﬂuence of Short Videos on the Cultural Transmission and Identity of Poetry

in the cultural feast, and participants can discuss with

authors and other netizens to deepen their impression

of cultural information. The comment section of

Nostalgic Poetry often seems to share the best words

of history, and this interaction greatly expands the

dissemination of cultural depth and greatly

strengthens the national identity of viewers. Platform

regulators need to review and adjust the diversity of

comments to maintain the positive energy of

spreading positive discourse.

5.2 Suggestions for Improving the

Effectiveness of Poetry

Communication

If the effectiveness of Nostalgic poetry dissemination

is not good, try to use modern visual technology and

background music combination, so that the passionate

emotions and heavy historical background shine with

a new attitude, to attract a large number of people's

pursuit, and strive to poetry dissemination to touch

the spirit of the core, the three ways to let the platform

creators to disseminate the effect of the next level:

The platform can create an exclusive theme page to

make it easier for viewers to quickly identify the short

videos related to different genres of poetry, thereby

increasing their love for ancient poetry. Creators are

able to create eye-catching copy that allows you, the

users, to express your personal opinions in the

comments section, increasing the heat value of the

topic. The interface achieves personalized display,

expands the dissemination of cultural knowledge,

enhances the user's memory level, reasonably

improves the exposure of various cultural materials,

breaks the single pattern of content, provides flow

support for creators who inherit the excellent

traditional Chinese culture, and strives to give a

glimpse of the whole picture to a wider group of

users.

5.3 The Role of Multimodal

Communication in Cultural

Identity

Multimodal communication greatly enhances the

quality of the audience's immersive experience, the

fusion of sight, sound, and narration, and the obvious

advance in the effectiveness of cultural presentation,

especially the perfect match between the combination

of sound and image, which arouses the audience's

urge to watch and enhances their understanding of the

emotional connotations of the poems. Users will be

inspired to continue watching after different music

and images, then they will go to search for related

topics and phrases, which will strengthen the

audience's access to information, and may also watch

more related documentaries or books to improve their

knowledge of the background of ancient poems, thus

achieving the effect of efficient cultural

dissemination.

6 CONCLUSION

Classical poetry is the core content of Chinese culture,

and the fertile cultural soil of classical poetry has

nurtured countless children of the Yellow Emperor.

In the present era, the channels of classical poetry

dissemination have become more complicated and

diversified, and the traditional media reflects the new

media era, so this study reveals the new trend. The

'short duration' characteristics of short videos and

multimodal communication channels converge to

achieve significant results in the promotion of

traditional culture, the role of different types of poetic

themes in the sense of cultural identity varies

significantly, and idyllic and borderline works are

more likely to evoke cultural resonance.

As the Internet wave sweeps across the world, the

forms of communication of Chinese cultural heritage

are changing day by day, the legacy of ancient poetry

is expanding into a new space, and future academic

discussions will focus on exploring the psychological

effects of short videos on audiences of different

cultures. Constructing a reference matrix for the

digital dissemination of traditional culture, as well as

focusing on the shortcomings of short video platforms

in disseminating poetic content and the loss of

spiritual core caused by excessive attention to form.

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A Study of the Inﬂuence of Short Videos on the Cultural Transmission and Identity of Poetry